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Cannes, France - Sony (NYSE: SNE) Music is "uncomfortable"
with cloud-based music services like mSpot, which do not require a license to
ensure songs being uploaded by users were legally purchased, according to
comments made by Thomas Hesse, president of global digital business for U.S.
sales and corporate strategy at the label.

Billboard covered a panel discussion
at the MIDEM music conference in France that featured both Hesse and Daren
Tsui, CEO of mSpot.

"We are very uncomfortable with a model where you can
just throw anything into the cloud and stream it, if what you threw into the
cloud was not legitimately purchased," Hesse said at the panel.

"It’s
not the right thing to do to launch a service under these kinds of shady legal
situations. We will do everything in our power to enforce our rights in those
kinds of situation."

For his part, Tsui replied that "It’s not our
job to police how [consumers] get their music."

Billboard and CNET noted
there is no legal precedent on cloud music services, but that major label EMI’s
lawsuit against cloud locker service MP3tunes.com could eventually provide
clarity on the issue.